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War Z capitalized on the hype generated by the Day Z mod, and now that it’s live on Steam gamers are angry over what appears to be false advertising of the game’s features.

When I first heard of The War Z I assumed it was a standalone sequel to the popular mod Day Z. I was wrong. The game is a new IP from Hammerpoint Interactive that appears to be little more than a rip-off of the Day Z mod (and sounded eerily familiar to the book World War Z and its upcoming film adaptation.)

The zombie genre has lots of games, of course, but the premise of the two games is simply far too similar to be a coincidence, though Hammerpoint claims the game went into development prior to Day Z’s sudden rise to fame and popularity.

Cash Grab

Since War Z went into beta, it’s been confronted with plenty of rounds of controversy.

A video producer at the website Just Press Start bought into the beta and was promptly banned the next day. There was no reason for the ban, and when he attempted to contact the company he was greeted with a cookie-cutter response—from a company that was not Hammerpoint but instead “Xsolla Support, a company known for payment transaction services.”

Apparently hundreds of other beta players were hit with the same ban at the same time and received the same cookie-cutter response, leading to outright revolt on the game’s official forums which apparently have no paid community manager.

Making matters worse, screenshots on the official game’s website were confirmed to be staged rather actual in-game footage.

As if all that isn’t bad enough, the entire project appears to be ripped from another game that War Z executive producer, Sergey Titov, was also involved with, War Inc.

Here’s a screenshot comparison that’s found its way online showing just how disturbingly similar the two games are:

Titov is the former managing technical director at Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends. He’s also the founder of Arktos Entertainment Group which acquired Hammerpoint in the very early days of War Z development, though no information about that acquisition or involvement in the game exists on the company’s website.

As is the case with stories such as these, things only get worse from here.

False Advertising

The game released on Steam earlier this week and quickly became the store’s best seller. But gamers quickly realized that something was wrong.

Now Hammerpoint is being accused of false advertising and defrauding customers; and while these allegations are often leveled at games for the pithiest of reasons, this appears to be a case where the complaints are well founded.

The original store page for the game on Steam listed a number of features that were not included in the game, including multiple maps of massive scale, ranging from 100 to 400 square kilometers. It listed servers with “up to 100 players.”

There is only one map which measures 72 square kilometers [Titov disputes this number.] There are also no available skills, a feature Titov says are coming soon. And game servers were, at least originally, capped at 50 players rather than the promised 100.

The game, which beta players forked over as much as $25 for, was priced at $14.99 on Steam, and includes micro-transactions. You wouldn’t know this if you read the game’s description on its official website, however, which reads:

Forget subscriptions, forget paid DLC and expansion packs.

The War Z is as simple as this – once you install the game to your computer, you will be able to get into the game quickly and play without worrying about subscription fees, no hidden fees, and no paid updates. All updates will be seamlessly delivered to you free of charge when they’re released.

Add AAA graphics and effects mixed with the ability to run even on integrated video cards or low end laptops and you have a unique, fun, experience that is available to everyone.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is….

GameSpy’s Dan Stapleton chatted with the aforementioned Sergey Titov to ask him about allegations of false advertising, asking some very straightforward questions about the blatant falsehoods presented on the Steam page.

Titov beats around the bush mostly, claiming that “up to 100″ players can mean anything between zero and 100, and writing that “I’m sure there’ll be people who will look into small details and will say “no I was mislead,” where in fact they imagined something to themselves without checking details first.”

Titov also claims that the first map, which he says is over 100 square km, falls into the “100 to 400″ kilometer category, and that online games are always getting new content so the claim that there are multiple areas is not false, even though there is only one map available at this time.

Blame Somebody

In an apology Titov posted following the interview he continued to blame customers for misreading the Steam page rather than admitting and owning up to the misleading language and false promises.

War Z appears to be the congregation of all the worst aspects of gaming: players say it’s boring and isn’t the game that it was advertised as; the textures are low-quality and the graphics are largely ripped from another previously released game; and while you pay to purchase the game, it utilizes a freemium model of micro-transactions, including items that disappear when you die (never mind the inherent problems with applying this model to a survival horror game.)

Many people are criticizing Valve for what is obviously an unfinished product showing up in their store. The problem appears to be a simple one. Because the game’s publisher had a game on Steam previously, their new titles can skip the review process, giving The War Z a free pass through the back door.

Valve may need to reconsider this policy in light of War Z‘s numerous problems, especially since many gamers will certainly demand a refund.

As Titov points out, the refund process is going to fall on Valve’s lap, noting that “it’s up to Steam to decide if they provide or not refunds.”

More to come as this unfolds. I’ve reached out to Valve for comment.

Valve’s Doug Lombardi responded to my request for comment in an email, writing:

From time to time a mistake can be made and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam. We apologize for this and have temporary removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build. Those who purchase the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund bycreating a ticket at our support site here: https://support.steampowered.com/newticket.php

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At least Steam had the balls to apologize for their mishap. Titov still thinks its our fault. Steam redeemed themselves but Sergey Titov is still a slime ball dirt bag in my book. Fxck him and everything he stands for.

So, someone that bought the game via steam can get the money back, what about thousands who bought the game before that, on the alpha stage? Everyone should get their money back and some extra for the ripoff.

Reposting from another article for those who feel cheated by Hammerpoint:

To be fair Steam is not doing real refunds for War Z. You get Steam Wallet cash. Not that I was silly enough to actually buy this mess. A Day Z clone from the creator of Big Rigs? No thanks …

Anyway, for anyone wrapped up in this mess The Escapist has a comprehensive guide to getting a Steam refund: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121189-How-to-Get-Your-War-Z-Refund-From-Steam

If you bought direct from Sergey and co. your best bet is to file a dispute with xsolla who handle War Z’s payment processing http://support.xsolla.com/

If that fails you are justified in asking for a chargeback from your bank / cc company / paypal due to the credible claims of false advertising, but beware that Xsolla will likely block you from their service and by extension from paying into whichever other services use them. Also obviously don’t do this to Steam, as they will lock your account.

actually your better off if you can go directly to your CC. Xsolla will pull strings with you also most of the time. Reports (that were long ago deleted of course from the war z forum) that xsolla was first saying they had no clue where the payment went and i did not go through them (weird). Then they were just out right denieing people.

I bought the game on oct15th and i was not expecting what the screenshots were etc. But man game was 10000x worse then I thought lol. Early dec. after screwing around with the war z folks i just went direct to my CC filed a dispute because it is a preorder of a game and it’s false advertising etc list goes on forever. Just make all those valid points bam 3 days later I had my charge back on my CC.

Btw the game can CAN be fun when you get into group fire fights etc. Can get intense. But I don;t play on the official game it’s filled with hackers :)

“Pixel_Pro (banned) Dec 19, 2012 @ 3:10pm Dear Sergey T. If you ever get around to reading this then i will assume you are aware of what took place here on steam.

im not sure you know exactly how your cash grab got axed but i will clarify this for you .

This is what happened : You lied about alot of stuff and i will not get into the nitty gritty because all these lies will surface around the web shortly but i have links if needing immediate details but Sergey you know what you did so lets just cut to the chase.

You thought you would simply get away with it, for us to get in a horizontal position and lay down while you walk all over us BUT your fatal error was to take it a step too far, insulting our intelligence by saying we misread the text on the store page but all we did was simply read and take the text to be true, misread? I have been awake now for about 19 hours because i wanted desperately to see this through and deep down i knew that this was beyond gripes and simple differences no no no this was beyond the point of no return the word outraged would be putting it nicely, we were simply outraged and would not stand for the lies and insults. banning users for simply expressing ones thoughts in a respectful manner, begging your forum users to bump the metacritic score up by rating war Z well, doing everything possible it seems to dig this hole even deeper to the brink of sabotage. I noticed you had a gestapo come to steam and try the same tactics of supressing our thoughts and look how long that lasted.

Bottom line ..

This is how it all happened..

We came together and would not give in until this blemish, this rotten cash grab was either removed or dealt with and golry to heavens Steam came through and supported us, Forbes did as well which was great.

It was that simple, you betrayed us and we werent gonna have it and simply returned fire.

your game will now fail a critic will have a hard time reviewing war Z w/o keeping the majority of gamers in mind. you will be forced to release this as a F2P model sooner than you wanted and this didnt have to be but you sergey, you froced this to happen..

We will come together again if we notice nything else which presents itself in the same fashion..

You didnt think we were capable now did you? Sometimes seeing is the only believing for some and you saw now goodbye.

ps.

Im sure some may have had their heart in the right place and i will not mention any names but yes others on your team watched this crash and burn by your hands while they hopelessly looked on, powerless.. How selfish”

Here is a link for some who were involved and a thank / love you thread to all involved..

“Pixel_Pro (banned) Dec 19, 2012 @ 1:14pm Just want to say that you guys are the best *Goodbye update * In the past 24 hours i have found that the gaming community in steam does come together ( for the most part) and fight vigillantly for what is right and putting ALL else aside.

I am proud to have witnessed and take part in the show of text/voice which opposed this kind of practice and will not have it any other way..

you guys are great.

EDIT we got thos crap removed, not steam .. you guys did..

http://store.steampowered.com/app/226700/

FREEEEDOMMMM !

EDIT : This unstoppable force came like a thief in the night unwavering and with unforseen power.. It unleashed justice like a razor sharp sword against pink flesh and then i blinked and it was gone..

i hope i will meet you again when the time is right for its only been minutes and i miss it like its been gone for years..

Goodbye unstoppable force, til we meet again..

Last edited by Pixel_Pro; Dec 19, 2012 @ 2:04pm”

Steam would NEVER had removed w/o the petiton and serious pressure by us.. Gamers did this, give us some credit for once since we always get shunned for no “solidarity”

All this griping about WarZ has gotten seriously pathetic. You all act as if you’re some holy crusaders against some evil enemy when its just a damn game people. Lots of people will still play, because the game is still good. This makes it seem as if we should all attack bethesda’s elder scrolls games because their legal department tried to sue Mojang over the name “scrolls” for an upcoming game.

That dude did the same thing with Big “shit” Rigs and something…….. He should be sued…..Day Z is a mod not a game…….War Z is a mod for War INC :))……..Yah give your money to that dude when you can wait for Arma 3 and a new and improve Day Z will be available with Arma 3 ……

Everything in the screenshot they’ve advertised is exactly what I’ve seen as an owner of this game, how in anyway is that false advertising?

And for the in-game screenshots, I agree, they look “too” good to be true, but for whoever buys the game merely on those images, and doesn’t watch a video or demo of the game before buying it, shouldn’t even bother buying games – period.